I knew there was something out there that I read regarding the dismal teacher job market. Here it is from the NYT. Although, I have heard claims that we are responsible mainly for training a particular state’s teachers. If that is so, then do the overall market conditions apply? Also, do universities in individual states feel the same way? That is, we train our state’s teachers and that’s pretty much it. Under the current system, each state should be responsible for its own teachers. But is that the kind of system we want and/or need?
I think it would be difficult to find two schools of education that agree on pedagogy, let alone two entire states, so I don’t see how we can escape, under the currently divided system, state or even region-specific universities. Additionally, schools of ed. funded by the states are under pressure to train teachers the state-specific rules and standards in the hope of better preparing them to teach to the state-specific standardized tests. The teachers themselves are, in no small way, standardized and built to the test as much as their banal lessons and basal readers.
These teachers who, when faced with such state-mandated dereliction of duty – by which I mean a devotion to the acquisition of game show trivia to be regurgitated once in a spattering of nonnegotiable multiple choice and a disregard for the principles of democracy, being equity, mobility, curiosity, and productivity – when told to knowingly uphold an inferior ideology, have not in any unified voice or renowned individual dissent refused such requests because they are (1) fearful of being denied the only acceptable space for a teacher, the classroom, and (2) the products of that same antiquated, yet romanticized system.
My hope would be for informed representatives from each state to get together to agree on the definition and purpose of compulsory public education, as well as general content requirements, benchmarks, and practical applications. A sort of pedagogical convention full of passionate discourse and innovative solutions from which a fundamental, just framework could be forged.
But when was the last time the 50 states got together and truly agreed on anything?
With the growing attempts to privatize education, it may soon be that Sons and Daughters of Pedagogy are forced to chant, “JOIN, or DIE” lest we accept a market-driven, for-profit system where those with the highest need are taught by the lowest bidder.
As for the article, maybe the general lack of teaching positions will bring about innovation in the system, as it often does in other fields. Forward-thinking risk-takers making the hard sell and trying to create curricula, technologies, and specializations based upon, yet greater than, the systems currently in place should certainly be in season.
Hopefully, through a wave of creativity and cooperation, we, the debased public pedagogues, can end the undeserving groans for higher pay, job security, and greater respect until we have developed something deserving of such dignities.